OK, I’m a little late – but hey, I’m in Costa Rica 🙂

Day 2… New Year’s Eve. We spent most the day at home relaxing. Except for Jen who cooked more authentic Costa Rican food for me to try. Here she is bringing me a plate of patacones – which are fried green plantains.

We dipped them in a black bean puree with Lizano sauce mixed in. Lizano is a staple condiment here – and I’m going to have to pick up a bottle to take home. Quite delicious.

We took some photos, read some books and blogs, meditated, listened to music, worked on Emily’s mermaid curtain craft.

My hair is a lions main needing to be tamed… the flat iron I brought is pretty much pointless though in this climate.

But do you like my new glasses?

Isn’t Brandon handsome?

I’m really liking his new beard.

We headed to town for a potential dinner out, but most everything was closed for the holiday.

The town was sure bustling, though. Looked like they had something big planned in the town center (park).

But we don’t really like crowds, so headed back home to enjoy the evening.

After a delicious burrito dinner, we gathered around on the floor to play our first game of Rory’s Story Cubes.

What a riot! I recommend this game for anyone who enjoys fun and creative play. Basic idea is you roll dice with pictures on them and make up stories based on what you roll. We were laughing ourselves silly, and only stopped because it was time for a movie… much to Marie’s chagrin, we opted for The Incredible Mr. Limpet. (She wanted to watch Robots)

Marie went to bed, but Emily wanted to stay up to watch the fireworks and ring in the new year with us. And ring it in we did. From the veranda, we have a panoramic view of a huge valley. It encompasses several cities – the largest of which is San Jose.

At midnight it began – and was an amazing spectacle. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many fireworks at one time in my entire life. Even though we were far away from the action, we were awed at the sheer number of sparkling explosions which lasted for a good 30+ minutes.

I shot some video and have edited it down to a little over a minute for you. Please note that this video is only of the San Jose portion (and only part of San Jose) – I didn’t have a wide enough angled lens to capture the entire valley. Enjoy!

How did you ring in the new year?